


Winter.  Wonderland.

by alyse



Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyse/pseuds/alyse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Oh, the weather outside is frightful...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter.  Wonderland.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Temaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temaris/gifts).



> Written for [](http://temaris.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**temaris**](http://temaris.dreamwidth.org/), on the momentous occasion of her birthday. Nao she old like me.

**Title:** Winter. Wonderland.  
 **Author:** alyse  
 **Fandom:** Alice (SyFy 2009)  
 **Pairing:** Alice/Hatter  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Word Count:** ~620  
 **Warnings/Spoilers:** No warnings. No spoilers.  
 **Disclaimer:** Property of SyFy, not me  


-o-

There's something magical about Alice's home city after the first snowfall of winter. It's the way that everything stops for a moment, the sidewalks crisply coated, the way it muffles sounds. Even the quality of the light changes; Alice has heard that light has weight but it's something she can't quite grasp, not until the city stills and she can feel it pressing down on her skin, heavy and comforting.

Hatter has no difficulty believing that light has weight. He seems to juggle those kinds of concepts as easily as Alice juggles her schedule or the bus timetables. Of course, Hatter can't even balance a chequebook, and he seems to expect buses to simply turn up whenever and wherever he wants them to, at his earliest convenience. (And the weird thing, Alice thinks, is how often exactly that seems to happen. It would be uncanny if it wasn't simply Hatter.)

But Hatter has never seen snow. Perhaps snow is simply something that doesn't happen in Wonderland. Perhaps the lake never freezes (although it was damned well cold enough when Alice tumbled into it), perhaps the winds never blow from the north, bringing freezing rain with them, or perhaps it does fall but is purple or green (even though, Alice knows, that kind of idea is utterly ridiculous, or would be if ridiculous and Wonderland didn't go together - she doesn't know enough about physics or chemistry to be able to argue with Hatter if he was to tell her such things and, knowing Hatter, he might). But whatever the reason, the white flakes drifting down from the sky seem to fascinate him. He darts from window to window in Alice's apartment, finally opening the one above the fire escape to stick his hand out and catch a few of the scattered falling flakes in his hand.

When he pulls his hand back in and watches the flakes melt against his skin, he looks, for a moment, as though he's pondering the mysteries of the universe, all the wonders it contains; Alice simply watches him, drinking him in, in much the same way. (Although, being Hatter, he might simply be wondering how to turn it into profit rather than pondering the mysteries of anything.)

When the flakes are finally all gone, fading into nothing, he turns to her, eyes are wide and bright as he grins, shaking his hand so that the water droplets tumble to the floor. She grins back, wide and happy, and thinks of snowball fights, of snowmen and snow forts, of hot chocolate afterwards with whipped cream and sprinkles that will melt on their tongues and how he'll taste when she kisses him. All the things she'll show Hatter tomorrow, when the day is fresh and new. All the new adventures they will share before reality intrudes: the snow blackened with traffic fumes and trodden down into ice; the chaos on the roads; the never ending chill and a thousand petty inconveniences that will turn all of her fellow citizens into Grinches, snarling green and bitter.

But for now she sits on the windowsill in her too-thin dress and leans backwards until her hair brushes against the cold iron fire escape, staring up into the sky past the halos of the streetlights and catching the snowflakes on her tongue.

They're gone, melted into nothing, before she kisses him; his mouth is sweet and warm against hers, and this time it's Alice who melts. But Hatter is melting with her, all taffy soft and fluid as he pulls her to the floor, and the snow drifts in through the open window.

Forget the world through the looking glass; this is all the wonderland they need.


End file.
